Since I won’t be able to make it to the Homemade Music Symposium this weekend, I wanted to at least offer my two cents on something that independent bands need to think about and adopt into their strategy. Many people think that the reason the music business is tanking is the lack of a new, sustainable business model. I agree. Which is why I have provided my own for bands to test out. But first, my take on the two biggest “problems” bands bitch about and a look at why it costs so much money to be in a band.
Problem #1 – Most Bands Have No Money
Unless your daddy is a millionaire or is in the business, independent musicians don’t have money to make proper albums or promote them. While it is very cheap to make music for some people, it’s not for others that are less technically savvy. At the end of the day, even installing Ableton Live (not pirated) on your PC (needs to have serious juice), getting an audio interface (USB or Firewire) and buying 4-5 microphones and necessary accessories can cost thousands of dollars. Then you have to record the damned thing yourself, which takes skill, time and attention. It’s not impossible to do it on your own, but the process can be much simpler and professional if you hire someone to record you. Hence, the need for money. With studios costing anywhere between $15-150 per hour, plus engineer, a 10-song album can be a costly ordeal.
Problem #2 – Music Should Be Free Mentality
Also, it’s a widely-known fact that new music fans don’t want to pay for music, whether it‘s because they know that the “label“ makes all the money, $15 per CD is too much (you only like one song anyway) or that they don‘t care. While us old farts that grew up on tapes and CDs still hold on to them like family heirlooms, today’s music fans go on P2P sites and pillage hundreds if not thousands of songs they like, without having to sit through any of the filler that they don‘t. This devaluation of music has made the perceived price of recorded music near zero.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.